A life saving gift
By Jerry W. Kram
You always hope you will never need an ambulance, but more than 1,400 times a year, the New Town Ambulance is there to try and save people from heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and all kinds of life threatening situations. Now, thanks to a generous gift from Slawson Exploration Company, the New Town Ambulance will be in an even better position to save lives.
Eric Sundberg, Environmental and Regulatory Affairs Manager for Slawson, presented an $80,000 donation to the New Town Ambulance Service. According to Amanda Bibb, Paramedic Supervisor for the ambulance service, the donation will allow the service to upgrade and add to its lifesaving equipment.
“This is going to give us vital equipment we have been needing for a while,” Bibb said.
Bibb said the money will be used for three separate pieces of the equipment. The first is a Lucas CPR machine. The Ambulance Service already has one Lucas device, but now they will have one in both ambulances.
The machine attaches to a small backboard that goes under the patient and can perform chest compressions for two to four hours on a single battery charge. Bibb said the device keeps a cardiac arrest patient alive and frees a crew member to administer medication or oxygen or other necessary tasks. The device also doesn’t get tired, which is a factor when a person has to perform CPR on a patient all the way to the hospital in Minot.
